nly I must be careful.
I shall be closely watched now. He is so jealous. I am going to write
to Cazaboni not to come again for some time, and you must tell Georges
to-morrow morning to go to Savigny for a fortnight."

CHAPTER XV. POOR LITTLE MAM'ZELLE ZIZI.

Oh, how happy Desiree was!

Frantz came every day and sat at her feet on the little low chair, as in
the good old days, and he no longer came to talk of Sidonie.

As soon as she began to work in the morning, she would see the door open
softly. "Good morning, Mam'zelle Zizi." He always called her now by the
name she had borne as a child; and if you could know how prettily he
said it: "Good morning, Mam'zelle Zizi."

In the evening they waited for "the father" together, and while she
worked he made her shudder with the story of his adventures.

"What is the matter with you? You're not the same as you used to be,"
Mamma Delobelle would say, surprised to see her in such high spirits
and above all so active. For instead of remaining always buried in
her easy-chair, with the self-renunciation of a young grandmother, the
little creature was continually jumping up and running to the window
as lightly as if she were putting out wings; and she practised standing
erect, asking her mother in a whisper:

"Do you notice IT when I am not walking?"

From her graceful little head, upon which she had previously
concentrated all her energies in the arrangement of her hair, her
coquetry extended over her whole person, as did her fine, waving tresses
when she unloosed them. Yes, she was very, very coquettish now; and
everybody noticed it. Even the "birds and insects for ornament" assumed
a knowing little air.

Ah, yes! Desiree Delobelle was happy. For some days M. Frantz had been
talking of their all going into the country together; and as the father,
kind and generous as always, graciously consented to allow the ladies to
take a day's rest, all four set out one Sunday morning.

Oh! the lovely drive, the lovely country, the lovely river, the lovely
trees!

Do not ask her where they went; Desiree never knew. But she will tell
you that the sun was brighter there than anywhere else, the birds more
joyous, the woods denser; and she will not lie.

The bouquet that the little cripple brought back from that beautiful
excursion made her room fragrant for a week. Among the hyacinths, the
violets, the white-thorn, was a multitude of nameless little flowers,
those flowers of